Economists who have studied the evolution of trade transactions between the two world wars have often stressed the existence of an obvious paradox: despite the disturbances brought about by the war period, the territorial changes, the monetary difficulties and the crises, international trade as a whole and particularly from a structural point of view, had a tendency, after a few years of complete disruption, to return to a pre-war pattern of evolution. Trade flows were returning to a distribution very similar to the one prevailing in 1913, and changes were occurring in the same direction as those of the 1896–1913 period. Certain countries endured great difficulties in the readaptation process, especially the United Kingdom, whose “structural crises” have often been cited. But the very changes that were sources of anxiety for English rulers were less a result of the transformation or the acceleration of pre-war tendencies than of their continuity.

Brazil is often cited as a developing country that has exemplified the trade-off between economic growth and equity. The basis for the claim was the rising inequality in the income distribution between the 1960 and 1970 censuses, combined with an increase in per capita income over the decade. Numerous scholars have analyzed the period, yet there is little or no agreement in the literature regarding either the causes or the extent of this apparent increase in inequality. Using a recently released sample of the 1970 demographic census, the empirical basis for the claim of deteriorating income distribution over the decade is examined here. Applying poverty lines defined for both 1960 and 1970 data sets, the correlates of income variance and poverty are analyzed. The results show that under most reasonable assumptions regarding data deficiencies and appropriate deflators, the fraction of the population in absolute poverty declined only slightly over the decade. Although the poorest households were found among the small farmers and sharecroppers in the rural areas in both 1960 and 1970, a large increase in the incidence of poverty in urban areas occurred over the decade.

Multiple regression analysis reveals that work in New England cotton textile mills during 1905–1912 raised age-adjusted mortality rates over those of non-mill- workers, and that worker mortality increased with years of mill experience. Mortality varied among groups because of differential self selection. Central age group native males with broad occupational choices had lower mortality rates than control groups. Young males, women, and the foreign born had restricted occupational choices. Hence they were less self selected and experienced higher mortality. Death rates were highest among married women workers who bore children. The combination of homework and millwork worsened their health and raised their mortality rates.

Present-Day economic historians should be well qualified to talk about uncertainty. There was a happier time when the empirical and concrete study of individual situations was deemed sufficient, when mediodological problems of the long run were left for historians to raise and solve if they could and controversies centered on questions that they themselves formulated. Differences there were, but few irreconcilable differences; areas of the unknown were recognized but there appeared to be no gaps in knowledge that could not be bridged in the course of time. Now, for better or worse, this sheltered position has itself become a datum of history. The challenge of social scientists seeking chics to an understanding of die forces shaping secular change has become increasingly insistent and effective; the strenuous wooing of Clio by economic theorists, statisticians, and Parsonian sociologists can no longer be ignored. Assuming that retreat to the shelter of cloistered storytelling is out of the question, creative response on the part of historians to the uncertainties of their twentieth-century environment becomes a condition of leadership in historical inquiry, its lack a virtual guarantee of submergence.

The paper develops a Marxian approach to economic history utilizing some recent, far-reaching reformulations of Marxist theory. On the basis of a new specification of class structures, the approach permits a nondeterminist analysis of the interactions of class and nonclass aspects of social change.

The year 1873 marked the zenith of the German free-trade movement, which had been gathering impact since 1818 when Prussia first established a tariff along free-trading lines. Promulgated at the peak of prosperity, the law of 1873 abolished immediately the duties on pig iron, raw steel, and ships, but, as a concession to the protectionists, only reduced the rates on other iron products and provided for their repeal on January 1, 1877. Despite the dissatisfaction of many free-traders, the latter provision opened the door for the repeal of other protective rates. Germany thus stood at the threshold of complete free trade.

The interest of economists in the nature and causes of economic growth has focused attention on demographic phenomena. For the economic historian, this has meant a reexamination of the historically unprecedented international population movements of the nineteenth century and their relationship to the process of economic growth.